


Love Rhymes with Orange

by ArcticLucie



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Stormpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticLucie/pseuds/ArcticLucie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Finn thought Rey was his soul mate, and the one time he realized it was Poe.</p>
<p>
  <i>Soul mate au where you see in black and white until you meet your mate, follows canon.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Rhymes with Orange

He didn’t notice it at first. How could he with the simple black and white armor that everyone marched around in and the drab décor of the dimly lit ship? Things were too hectic when he and Poe were flying around in the stolen craft for him to pick up on the signs, the blinking lights on the console were faded and dull, and the reds and oranges of TIE fighters breaking apart at his fingertips were muted by the bright white of explosions leaping out on the black canvas of space.

Then he crash-landed on Jakku, his mind wrought with a grief he felt so deep inside him that he was unable to understand the full extent of it in the moment. By the time he had come back to his senses, he was severely dehydrated from walking miles through the Jakkuian desert and was convinced the weird shaded sand was just a mirage. A dream, maybe? Sometimes people who hadn’t found their mate yet occasionally dreamt in color.

Regardless, the first time it clicked in his brain that his vision was no longer restricted to black, white, and shades of gray was when he came face to face with BB-8, the orange of the droid jumping out at him like knives being jammed into his eyeballs, blinding and visceral. Then he looked up and saw her—Rey, so fierce and beautiful, breathtaking really. The idea that she was Finn’s soul mate, the other half of his being, the one he’d been waiting his whole life to meet, was a logical assumption and the only one he could’ve made.

It was an honest mistake really, but it was strange that she didn’t greet him with open arms.

 

*****

 

Finn thought she had figured them out on the _Millennium Falcon_ when they were tucked away in the belly of the ship with less than a hair’s breadth between them. He was willing to concede that they were too busy running from stormtroopers on Jakku for her to think of anything else but their escape. It made sense with adrenaline pumping through veins that some things would go unnoticed until the universe slowed down enough for them to be seen.

And he thought she did, thought he saw the pieces locking into place in her mind as the sound of foreign footsteps echoed overhead.

BB-8 lit their flame and Rey’s face was illuminated with a faint orange glow—yes, she was breathtaking—but then she was leaning in. He closed his eyes tight to await true love’s first kiss only to open them to the vision of Han Solo of all people looking down at them from above.

When Han told him that women always found out, he assumed he meant something about their bond. Maybe Rey needed more of a push, a realization that they were bonded in order for it to take. Or maybe she was colorblind. Was that a thing? Either way, he figured he needed to come up with a way to break the news to her. But how exactly was he supposed to do that?

 

*****

 

When the giant tentacled beast had him careening towards certain death, he thought of Rey, of how he was going to die without her ever knowing they were bonded. That was a horrible way to go through life, hoping day after day for your mate to come along to brighten your world from the darkness you were born into only to die before it was ever realized. He’d heard of people going mad from the waiting.

He knew what that was like, he’d been there quite recently, wondering if he was going to die before he found his other half, how sorry he’d be to leave someone behind he’d never even met to face a world of gray for the rest of their sorrowed existence. The worst part was the not knowing. Maybe they died and left you, but maybe you were going to die and leave them. That was almost as excruciating a thought as finding them only to watch the color fade away when their life ended.

Either way, there was pain and void and loss.

But he didn’t die, Rey saved him, and he knew he had to tell her, had to sit her down and come clean. And not just about the bonding but also about his past and who he really was. It would be tough but soul mates survived worse. She saved his life, he owed her that much at least. As soon as they got to on the _Falcon_ he’d tell her. That was the plan until he got stuck on Wookie first aid duty.

 

*****

 

Maybe it was best if she didn’t know they were soul mates. That’s what he told himself as he got up from the table in Kanata’s cantina to search for alternate transport off world. Rey probably wasn’t missing anything anyway. At that point, he was almost in sensory overload from all the colors swirling around him like the world had been turned into a kaleidoscope he’d heard mention of as a child, only much more dizzying, but that could’ve been all the near-death experiences he’d been exposed to lately.

Besides, the whole bonding thing was not what he thought it would be, was not like he heard it was supposed to be. There should have been an instant connection, sparks going off with bells and whistles and a huge sign from the universe that you’d finally found each other. Your world was supposed to be forever changed, and his was, but not in the way he’d expected.

Rey was great, she was amazing actually, strong and brilliant, but why weren’t they connecting on a level that went deeper than friendship? Where was the romance and that fluttering feeling in his stomach he’d heard so much about? And why did their bond seem to be so one-sided?

It didn’t matter. He was going to do them both a favor and leave. She’d go do her thing, save the galaxy from the First Order, and he’d go scavenge for things to support the war effort. Everything was going to work out fine.

Because when he thought about it, he had heard about people whose bond only went one way, and how terrible would it be to know that Rey would forever be denied the beauty of color because of their incomplete bond? The guilt might’ve just eaten him alive. This way, she’d never have to know. Except that would mean she’d be one of those people who’d spend their whole life waiting for something that would never come.

 

*****

 

Finn’s previous plan of running away went right out the window when the First Order attacked Takodana. When he saw Rey being carted away in the arms of Kylo Ren, he vowed to do everything in his power to get her back. They might not’ve been the traditional soul mates with a bond so strong they could feel the other’s pain, but he was still tied to her by an imaginary string fastened to their souls.

“We have to get her back,” Finn said, pacing the _Falcon_ as Han flew her back to the Resistance base on D’Qar.

“We will,” Han replied.

“We have to go after her.”

Han grunted in annoyance, “I told you, we will. Now sit down and shut up.”

He slumped into the copilot chair with a heavy sigh, “You don’t understand. She’s my soul mate.”

“She wasn’t.” Before Finn could argue Han held up his hand to stop him, “Listen kid, I’ve been around the galaxy, I’ve seen a lot of things. When I met Leia, she thought her brother, her _brother,_ was her mate, so believe me when I say I know a bond pair when I see one, and you two are not mates.”

“Then why can I see in color?”

Han shrugged and turned back to the controls. Finn knew he didn’t have the answers, no one did, but he spent the rest of the flight replaying every conversation he and Rey had in his head. He tried to pinpoint the moment his world burst into a vivid picture rich with so many hues he could hardly believe it, but he wasn’t very successful. His first memory of anything other than gray was of BB-8.

It could’ve been one of this fellow stormtroopers on the ship he escaped from, but the only other person he remembered having any contact with was Poe Dameron who he already ruled out because he was dead. None of it made any sense.

Until it did.

 

*****

 

Orange.

That’s all he saw when the crowd parted, someone climbing out of an X-wing in an orange flight suit as BB-8 rolled over to them. Then the pilot took off his helmet and a flood of dark curls fell right out of it. Finn’s breath seized in his chest and he couldn’t move, couldn’t blink when Poe turned around. Their eyes met and right on cue a rabble of butterflies took flight within him.

_Oh…oh! This…oh_ this _, yeah, this makes a lot of sense._ A lot _of sense._

Then his feet were moving, zooming over concrete until their bodies collided in a crash of limbs and lips and explosions of color that painted his eyelids as they kissed. Oh yes, this was it, what he’d been waiting his whole life for, and it had nothing to do with color and everything to do with the hand in his hair and the body pressed against him. He felt whole, complete, at peace for the first time in his hollowed existence and it was all because of a man he thought he’d randomly plucked out of the hands of the First Order.

“Wow,” was all he could say, his mind too blissed out for anything else.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Poe breathed on his lips before he kissed him again and again and again, each one bringing new colors to the world around them.

“I…thought you were dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Poe smirked, and Finn just had to kiss that right off him.

They broke apart panting some time later, Poe’s lips shimmering with their saliva as they took each other in. “That’s my jacket.” Finn tried to take it off but Poe stopped him, “No, no, no! Keep it, it suits you.”

“How about we share it?”

“I like the way you think, _mate,_ ” Poe grinned, and Finn loved the way that last word sounded on his thoroughly kissed lips. Poe fisted his hands in the collar of their jacket and pulled him in for another scorching kiss that almost had him burning up like a star going supernova.

The sun had set by they time they made it inside for debriefing. They just couldn’t resist enjoying their first sunset together, but they had work to do now. The First Order was still out there and they needed to find Rey, so getting to know each other more intimately would have to wait. That was okay though because they had their whole life ahead of them. 

But for now, the only thing he needed to know about Poe was that the man looked quite dashing in orange. And the only thing Poe needed to know about him was that orange was his favorite color.


End file.
